“Yes, I am.” A ribbon of irritation a mile wide wound around Carlos’s lungs, squeezing them tight. After tonight, there was no way Mika was going anywhere that would take her out of his direct line of sight. “You hired Maltese to catch this guy, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And since he seems to have his eyes set on you now, I’ll give you three guesses as to where I’ll be.”
He stared her down, but she didn’t budge. Hell, she didn’t even blink. But he wasn’t giving in on this. No one was getting hurt again under his watch.
“Fine,” she huffed.
“Weeeell.” Reggie drew out the word as he withdrew a large plastic bag from his jacket. “Since that’s settled, do you still have that costume I can give to the crime lab? Or did he swipe it?”
Mika was all attitude and stiff movements as she strutted over to a large wooden box inlaid with ebony. She ran her hands over the top, popping open a hidden lock, then opened it, removed the long purple vestment, and dropped it into Reggie’s plastic bag.
She pivoted on her heel and looked Carlos dead in the eye. Challenge. Anticipation. Anger. He watched each emotion flitter across her face and braced for the boom sure to follow, but the explosion never hit. Instead, worry lined her smooth forehead, and her bottom lip quivered just the slightest bit. Mika wasn’t about to explode, she was going to implode, and he had a feeling the blast would be much more devastating.
“So what now?” she asked, managing to mask the tremble in her voice with enough bravado to fool most people.
Following her lead, he clamped his hands into fists to better fight off the unexpected instinct to gather her in his arms. “We figure out who in the hell this asshole is.”
Chapter Five
“Conformity is the only real fashion crime.”
—Simon Doonan
Mika’s design studio inhabited a small corner of a no-frills building in Harbor City’s fashion district, six blocks from her apartment. Earlier in the week, she’d walked the distance, soaking in the city’s early morning hustle and bustle before meeting the movers who had delivered her boxes, furniture, and equipment. The twenty-story glass and steel building had seemed cool and sleek in the daylight. Tonight, after everything that had happened, its stark industrial accents gave off a distinctly cold and creepy vibe.
Holding her breath as her heart clanged against her ribs, she slid open the metal door to her design studio, half expecting her attacker to jump out at the last moment. She peered into her studio’s inky darkness, but she could barely make out the closest stack of boxes, let alone the bogeyman lurking in the dark.
Carlos walked past her into the loft and flicked on the lights, dropped his black duffel bag and a sack of necessities from the drug store to the side, and started a quick sweep of her studio—not that you couldn’t see everything in the thirty-by-thirty room from the door. He must have come to the same conclusion, since his inspection of the studio and its small bathroom took about a minute before he waved her inside.
“You’re the only one who knows about this place?” Carlos asked.
“The building manager and me.” She walked in and closed the door behind her, locking the deadbolt and adding the chair for good measure.
“Anything look out of place?”
She scanned the large room. Everything was where it should be. Boxes of material samples stood stacked in the corner. Her desk and computer took up space in the center of the room, close enough to the wall-to-ceiling windows that she could get the full effect of the tenth-floor view. The cabinets on the east side of the room remained shut, as did the mini-fridge tucked away under the counter next to the sink. The world’s most comfortable couch sat on the other side of the room, perfect for crashing when she’d be spending long hours working in the studio—or hiding out from a psycho mugger with a hard-on for LARPing costumes.
“The only thing out of place is the fact that we’re here.”
He laughed, a deep, genuine sound that bounced around the studio. For the first time since he’d strutted into the Maltese Security conference room that morning like just another alpha-hole from the assembly line, he was the man she’d met at Feeny’s the night before: sexy, confident, and relaxed like a man comfortable in his own skin.
An electric frisson danced across her skin, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from demanding that they reenact exactly what was going through her head at that moment.
Standing in the middle of the studio, Carlos untied his shoes and then reached behind his head, pulled off his T-shirt, and dropped it on top of his discarded shoes. She took in his broad shoulders, muscular chest, and abs no man who’d ever played Magic Battledome should have.
Oh God, I didn’t say that out loud, did I?
It sounded like something she’d do, but judging by the sharp stabs of pain where her teeth impaled her lip, she was pretty damn sure she hadn’t.
Before she could begin to imagine what workout routine had given him the V indentations
inside his narrow hips, he dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.
“So what’s so important about the costumes?” He went down and pushed back up in a steady rhythm. “What would make someone go to so much trouble for LARPing gear?”
She would have answered if her brain could form words. She forced her gaze away in an attempt to cool off her overheating imagination and looked at the tin ceiling, the slate-gray wood floor, the deep purple couch big enough for two…
Her nipples puckered underneath the smooth silk of her bra. Damn, the things she could do to him on that couch.
“Mika…” he prompted.